The Foundation

Download the report here This Human Business – The new bottom line is social

Written by Anthony Painter and commissioned in partnership with award winning communications agency Bondy Consulting, This Human Business - the new bottom line is social  presents the case that short term thinking focussed on money alone is counter-productive to growth.  This is the age of social networks and dialogue with consumers – a fact that all businesses should take on board.

Organisations like Tesco that have failed to understand that humans are driven by more complex factors than price alone are more likely to suffer disproportionately in hard times. Only now following last week’s results is Tesco taking steps to change things.CEO Philip Clarke is planning a £400m investment to ‟reconnect” with British shoppers, providing a shopping experience that makes them feel warmer. “It is not just about giving the stores a lick of paint. We’re going to invest cash to put more people in the right stores, in the right area,” he has commented.

The report highlights how some businesses have failed to fully understand what motivates people and so how to increase value for their customers and themselves. It was not just a financial system that crashed in 2008, it was a whole way of understanding human beings and, consequently, business that failed. People are not only rationally motivated, but also need meaning and purpose. For business it is important to tie the essentials, such as security and rationality, to empathy.

Drawing on research from social, psychological, and biological worlds, the report asks tough questions about the way in which business creates sustainable value. It blends these insights with case studies from Amazon, Audi, The Royal Marines, Apple, W.L.Gore, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Marks & Spencer, First Direct and others.

This Human Business highlights the fact that businesses who didn’t built up a “social surplus” and hook people emotionally in the good times, may suffer disproportionally now that times are getting tougher. It argues that this whole new way of understanding business will change our economic landscape. Businesses that understand that the new bottom line is social will thrive; those that don’t could nose-dive. It is about workers, suppliers, customers, the wider community having a better balance of cost and benefit: it is the reality of the latest understanding of who we are and how we interact to create long term value.

Charlie Dawson, founding Partner of The Foundation, said:

“Our business is about helping firms to grow and innovate. We’ve increasingly found that the old tools – focused too narrowly on outputs rather than people – have left businesses pushing harder and getting diminishing returns. They can make the short term look healthy, for a while but eventually the edifice will come tumbling down. We wanted to look at business afresh and This Human Business is the result. We will be applying its lessons in our work, but what is most important is that people engage in the debate about the future of business – we want to provoke a lively and practical discussion about where business should be heading.

Jessica Bondy, Chief Executive of Bondy Consulting, said:

“These are tough business times but the questions are not just about the current economic situation. It’s deeper than that: all businesses need to understand how they are essentially social networks.

“Marketers and brand builders can no longer control or broadcast messages. Technology and transparency have changed all that. Small human benefits are a form of marketing now and just as people were encouraged to continue to invest in advertising in previous downturns to ensure they can

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